Why We Outlasted the Neanderthal

Chip Walter, author of "Last Ape Standing," describes what we know about the Neanderthal's day-to-day life and why Homo sapiens were better adapted to survive and thrive.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... Paul Ryan said ... that we ... are of dubious J weekend Revue ... I'm here today with choked Walter who is the author of a new book called The Last extending to that of many prehistoric cousins too ... did not make it with us into the modern age of chip there's been a lot of talk this week on line about the idea of bringing a Neanderthal or community of Neanderthals back to life or to back its target ... yes George Church two hundred rupees a molecular biologist and his work is about using it every Ready DNA and all sorts of interesting ways and use that as a ... powerful example of what you can do whatever you rewriting DNA ... so what Leno about the son of David the existence of of Neanderthals ... well a lot more as time now in essence ... there is of French ... anthropologists back and it ... almost exactly a hundred years ago too ... who was working with the bones of up to Neanderthal that have had ... severe arthritis and so every and rebuilt his bones and everything he ... she betrayed him as the stoop shouldered new routes ... that ... you know you just by looking at him you got the impression that he is stupid ... and and so ... that in hell for four decades that's the way we look to the end of the word handers also attended indicates that there are ... no stupid and brutish up ... but in fact they were very very right of the Rings fractionally on average larger than ours ... they had a lot of it and skills of inventory hunters they survive to ... buy stages in your of while policy ins in our direct ancestors combining their time ... and Africa ... but life is pretty rough when you look at their fossils ... their loans and been broken and healed him ... so some people say they ... look like Bronco Buster snow in a because they've been injured so many times ... that also indicates that ... they took care of one ... you know it's not as though someone Courtenay abandoned them ... there are and there's lots of evidence that the city they took share of one another they must offer one another and never very tight ... communities where we know about ... their ability to to so to speak ... a language ... sch well there's you know it's hard to understand ... what was going on in terms of language because earn any real hard fossils that can be a blast of wind which are ... you know ... that is just not existed call to see there is evidence that ... the fronts were different than ours ... which made me more difficult in this by the way to strokes for different partly because they're kind of selected for cold climates ... and so because it throws for a little different different in their larynx was a little different they may not been able to make all the sounds that we can make ... up and so there's a lot of interesting theories about ... exactly how complex airline which was but ... generally now it's snowing poses a coming around to the belief that they did have a ... pretty sophisticated ways ... of communicating that they may have been quite different from ours and one of the kind of musical limited accommodation and gestures and sounds ... so ... that in itself but it made it difficult ... to share ideas because it might not have as rich vocabulary and two ... to share those ideas the other thing is that if there were very many of them ... it doesn't mean you are running into different groups ... that made at different new ideas and then they couldn't cross pollinated and share those ideas ... and any other thing is that they didn't live very well I mean individually that in winter long so ... you know the rare ... and as the lead pastor air pollutants thirty five ... to go up to age fifty with some fossils indicate that they did you are really ancient ... up ... and if you're dying early then it also means that you're not been as much time to mentor ... you know younger members of the group and you don't have as much time to get experience and new ideas as long so ... they they were dealing with a lot of issues and that might have ultimately been one of the problems ... that ... accelerated their extinction ... Sherlund and one final question so ... obviously were in the Roman period here but ... what allowed humans to become the last eight while everyone else ... faded away ... well ... that's that's really the key premise of the op and and and the answer to that is ... then be more than any other primate ... developed ... along child ... the getting over a million years ago ... there was a ... was a dilemma that our direct ancestors taste ... Ashley Olsen and they said were an African states ... they're all walking operate ... some of them their brains are growing larger rather rapidly ... what happened was due to large ring ... and that ... in no danger of walking upright which narrows and tell us it means that either ... you're not going to be warm ... because France today than you can get out ... if you go full term when you get more narrow ... and so what happened to us and our direct ancestors as we got more early ... so we really come in the world even now it means the world the steel gates ... where our brand triples in size after World War ... with most other primates most of the work and most of the development of brain takes place before the war ... so as a result we live out in the world ... and we can't step away from our ... DNA and our genes ... and our personal experiences children ... does anyone lays the foundation for ... you know the interesting people to come later ... so we can develop individual talents later those turning to the individual ideas ... and then there were more more sapiens ... as it became more and more successful ... because of our larger brand because of our ability to communicate and share our creativity ... and ultimately that's all you end up with civilization and that's why ... there are no more Neanderthals left ... there are no more dear KP board in the seasons are all the other ... Siemens's who were living on planet seventy five thousand years ago ... and a seven point one billion of us and were living in every nook and cranny of the plan ...